


i'll be the smoothest thing to touch your skin

by chartreuser



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: M/M, inspired by hades and persephone yada yada
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-01
Updated: 2013-08-01
Packaged: 2017-12-22 01:22:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/907225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chartreuser/pseuds/chartreuser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jimmy compares Thomas to Hades, notes some similarities.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'll be the smoothest thing to touch your skin

It was all a game at first; a simple, friendly competition of hide and seek with Thomas’s cigarettes that seemed to end up in a forest fire.

They’re sitting across each other in the servants’ hall and it feels like the both of them are dancing together in a burning room, what with Thomas’s eyebrows narrowed so very delicately on that pretty face of his.

“‘m going mad. I need my cigarettes." 

He thinks he’s angered at first, watches him strike a match just to stare at the flame, lips pursed in the way that makes Jimmy recall how they feel like on his lips, skin,  _cock_ —

"It’s time you got rid of that habit, don’t you think?" He answers his lover with the suavity he could only hope he possesses, stares as gloved fingers rub against his own chin. “Cigarettes aren’t very good for your health."

He’s been getting too little of him lately, Jimmy realizes. He ought to get more of Thomas, Thomas that smells of tobacco and expensive aftershave and forbidden fruits— 

(They say Persephone was exactly where she wanted to be, and Jimmy does not doubt that any longer; having tasted something akin to a pomegranate himself — he understands the addiction the girl has fallen prey to, believes that Hades and Thomas probably shares some kind of physical resemblance; the man is too  _beautiful_.)

The Bates couple sit themselves close to him, and Jimmy almost flinches at the tender, loving words that pass between the both of them, prefers the quiet promises Thomas makes in bed instead. 

 _I won’t hurt you_ , he’d say.  _I’ll see to it that I never do that in the future._

Jimmy prefers that over every sickening confession he hears from the man everyday.

"I think it’s time you give them back," Thomas’s thumb rubs against his lips smoothly, and the blond can practically feel the desperation oozing out of the man’s pores. He wonders if he behaves like this at night, when the both of them do not sleep each other, if he’s as  _thirsty_  for him as he touches himself alone in the early morning—

But he breaks that train of thought off because it’s just too  _inappropriate_  relating something so innocent as cigarettes to sex at _Downton_.

 _Illegal sex, at that._  Jimmy chuckles to himself as he looks back up at Thomas Barrow, golden eyelashes a veil for hooded eyes, practically an open invitation.

"You could come and get them yourself," he challenges the underbutler, wants to see the sight of him begging and pleading and squirming under him, but doesn’t make a sound, thinks that these thoughts of his will come true later.

If he could stand himself to be patient enough, of course. If he plays his cards right.

-

There are some nights where he cannot stand having to skip a few hours of sleep for the sake of sex with Thomas, but this time it’s different, and Jimmy is grateful for the extra hours of sleep he had snatched earlier on.

(He should do this more often; take something of Thomas to never return it back unless he earns it. Jimmy’d thought he was turning delusional at first, but he has taken bite of that forbidden fruit and now he is  _gone_ ,  _empty_ , and  _sealed_  in the underworld; might as well start enjoying his stay there in Hades’ arms.)

"Tell me where they are." He demands immediately when he strides in, his slate-coloured gaze practically piercing into Jimmy’s own. “Are you going to deprive me of all my pleasures? Is that your plan?" He likes it; it almost feels painful, and there’s lust in there somewhere, somehow. “Please, Jimmy. I need it."

His Hades looks at him frustrated, and Jimmy grins.

"Maybe those  _are_  my plans. Though I’m sure you don’t find them as enlightening as I do."

Thomas is anything but gentle when he crushes his mouth against Jimmy’s, pushing him down even further against the bed with a vigor he knows only belong to him, like the beat to the song Thomas liked so much. 

 _Fierce,_  Jimmy reflects.  _But so sweet._

(He thinks that he should teach Thomas how to play that someday; seeing as he likes to listen to it so much, maybe touch him discreetly when he lectures him. Little flutters against the his nape, tiny exhales of breaths against his ear—the way Thomas had tried to seduce him while they conversed about clocks, about how to wind them up;  _push_  until a certain kind of resistance shows.)

The blond relishes when he hears a growl resonate from somewhere along the base of Thomas’s throat, bucks his hips against his thigh so very lustfully— _this is illegal_ , he reminds himself, but why does it matter?

In the end, James Kent is dead in the underworld, sitting on the king’s lap as he rules it all.

-

Jimmy finds that Thomas does not necessarily need those expensive cigarettes of his after a period of time, when he finds a more-than-adequate replacement for his dear lover every night after work.

He thinks that he is addicted too, dependent on those lips of Thomas - but doesn’t mind, pays no attention, enjoys the ride instead.

"Don’t you think it’s time you returned me those cigarettes of mine?" He exhales against his ear one night, the friction helping to spread a faint blush across his visage, makes him think of distance he has fallen. 

It’s a deep sentence: Jimmy knows that Thomas is referring to something else, but shakes his head, wants to remain like this for all of eternity—he is  **mad** , but doesn’t want any way out of this predicament; wishes to live like two sinners trapped in heat for the rest of his life.

This lifestyle is satisfying. Night after night of pleasure—a perfect way to drown your blues away, he thinks. With something other than alcohol and gambling and cigarettes. 

"A particularly bad habit, I agree." 

"I like it, though. It suits you. And me."

There are always different meanings woven into each word that transpires between them; a coded message, a date, time, place. Maybe the words are ‘you make me happier than anything else in the world’, perhaps the words don’t mean anything but a sickly sweet aftertaste of sex and desire, but they always mean  _something_.

In this case, it means ‘we’ve sunk too far to head back; i love you’.

If hell waits for the both of them after the end of life, it does not matter.

(He is already bound there, enclosed in Hades’s grasp for far too long to crave for the surface above.)


End file.
